Did anyone consider making new seperate trees, like for the Force, for combat and tech powers?

This strikes me as very intresting. I would love to throw my two cents into this.

My first thought is what time period in the mass effect universe to use. I could imagen games in any of the following. First contact war, Rachni War, Krogan Rebllion, Quarian/Geth War, Rise of Saren, Return of the Collectors and Reaper War. Some of those are more grounded and easier to work with.

Second, I could see allowing the use of obligation and duty. The players, just like in EotE could have massive depts and have bounty hunters sent after them. Likewise with the AoR beta, the players could have been enlisted in the Alliance Navy or the Turian Navy and have a solem duty to defend their kind from the reapers. This mechanic seems to hold up very well.

In terms of player races, it does depend on which time period but in terms of the latest with the Reaper War I could imagen many races. Human, Quarian, Geth, Asari, Salarian, Turian, Krogan, Elcor, Drell, Volus, Hanar, Batarian, Vorcha and even Rachni (I will get back to them.) With that pool of races there are all manner of potential play styles for beef cakes, skill monkeys and social faces. This would lend itself to all manner of play style and would work just fine.

With careers, I could see some names changes and fluff changes. I could see using a mix of EotE and AoR careers. However this does reach (in my eyes) the first real point of change. There would need to be changes for biotic powers and even tech powers. But aside from changing or adding some trees this will work just fine. Similar minor changes to talents and skills may be needed. I personally already have added demolitions for my EotE game and as above I could see Martial arts fitting in well.

Gear, weapons and ships are fluff changes. Though alot could be added. I can imagen things like medigel acting like stimpacks. Omnigel could add boost die to help open locks and hack terminals. Weapons from the games could take the place of blasters and mod could be reworked to have upgrades like those in mass effect 1. Vehicles like the Mako Hammerhead and Kodak take the place of speeders. Smaller freighter ships would still be the ideal for player groups but bigger ships could use variation of the capital ships in the games.

I only see tech talents and biotic powers needed to be worked significantly.

Just to let you guys know...I have seen some of the best work done for an unoffical tabletop of mass effect alreayd srt up, however it is 20d but the way it is setup is almost flawless. just wantedf to let you know there was another option instead of converting into another system.

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/368/index/14029274/1

check out the screen shots they provided.

http://img717.imageshack.us/img717/7273/17415821.jpg

http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/3858/18581802.jpg

http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/6051/74394821.jpg

http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/3774/47411226.jpg

the pdf is hard to find since there are so many links but if you want it let me know and ill see about getting it to you.

Just to let you guys know...I have seen some of the best work done for an unoffical tabletop of mass effect alreayd srt up, however it is 20d but the way it is setup is almost flawless. just wantedf to let you know there was another option instead of converting into another system.

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/368/index/14029274/1

check out the screen shots they provided.

http://img717.imageshack.us/img717/7273/17415821.jpg

http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/3858/18581802.jpg

http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/6051/74394821.jpg

http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/3774/47411226.jpg

the pdf is hard to find since there are so many links but if you want it let me know and ill see about getting it to you.

If i had seen that before playing Eote then wow but D20 dice just feel off now.